Ken Hisuag

Also here's the playlist (one track is missing; guess which?):

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of Octopath's soundtrack was its character specific battle intros, allowing the same boss battle themes to be unique for each character's story; these battle intros were characterized by the instrumentation and tone related to each character. This was the extent of dynamic composition in the game.

For Octopath II, a similar process was employed; each character has a boss battle intro theme unique to them. However, this time these tracks, called Pursuit themes, are arrangements of their respective character themes, with mood adjusted accordingly. This adds somewhat to the dynamic quality of the motifs by expanding on their utilization.

The dynamic utilization does not end there, however. The end-game boss has two phases; the first, as shown above, utilizes the Pursuit structure, similar to the first game's handling of the same scenario. The second phase does not; instead, the character theme is integrated directly into the boss theme. This admittedly simple technique has a marvelous effect, creating a semi-unique piece for every character . . .

. . . with one exception.

Part of me considers this a spoiler. I've probably done enough to sell the soundtrack by now, so for those who would prefer to experience it the way it was intended, I would recommend against finishing this feature. It's not currently very practical to secure the soundtrack, but I believe it's well worth it.

That will have to do; I could happily post Octopath music for the rest of the month, but this should be sufficient to showcase why I consider the sequel to be a worthy successor and a masterpiece in its own right.

Hikarisyuyo's Storage - Take That!!!
This isn't at all what I expected to settle on for Ultimate Truth, but once it turned up it was difficult to ignore. Between the sound quality highlighting all the best strengths of the instruments at play within a surprisingly fitting arrangement for the motif in question, this was a rare find to be appreciated.

Amplified Sound - Border of Life (Novy's Progressive Remix)
It is not necessarily desirable to find an arrangement that captures the same tone as the original for any given piece, but some tracks more noteworthy for the same encourage a degree of investment towards it; I'd argue Bloom Nobly, Ink-black Cherry Blossoms is such a piece. Yet in my searching, I found very few pieces that captured both the tone of the original and the originality of a remix, leastways to my specific liking. Ultimately, I settled on this one because of it's length; possibly both its strongest and weakest feature, the extended progression of the track simulates the tone I'm looking for without feeling too strongly attached to the original.

Paired tracks are not uncommon through the Touhou series, especially from 14 onward where the last stage theme uses the same motif as the final boss theme. PCB is unique in that it has three instances, all close together at the end: Who Done it?, Necrofantasia, and Border of Life. This last one is the most difficult for me to define; it has some characteristics that would appropriately differentiate it from its parent track, but as a climax piece it isn't technically intended to be. While I did find several arrangements focused on this specific version of the motif, I ultimately decided not to feature it to avoid redundancy.

There are three soundtracks I will reference as being my all-time favorite, the first being Touhou, which I consider to be a classification of its own due to its unique and expansive style. The other two are more properly contending for #1, both being exemplary productions of melody, style and creativity, while contrasting each other in tone; these are A Hat in Time and Octopath Traveler. This year, the latter series received its third entry, being the second proper installment; my anticipation for this release was immense, and it did not disappoint.

The expectations of a sequel are for the qualities of the original to be expanded and improved upon, whatever those qualities may be. This does not always mean "better" or "more," but often must be one of those things to some degree to be considered successful; the alternatives are usually "different," in the better case, or "worse" in the lesser case. Octopath Traveler was a masterpiece of clear motifs with strong structure, full of memorable pieces that, sufficiently composed to stand on their own, collectively created an unforgettable experience. If it was to live up to its predecessor, Octopath Traveler II needed to either refine these qualities and add depth to them, or introduce a new element of some sort, ideally compatible with the original's style. Nishiki did both.

The gimmick of Octopath Traveler II is its day-night cycle; while there is a gameplay component to this, our focus is more concerned with the musical aspect to this addition. Major areas and towns have unique music for their night cycles, with the melodies of their standard themes often being completely rearranged. To highlight this contrast, Nishiki employed a vocal element that is unique to these night themes.

Aside from this, the soundtrack's motifs are more dynamically integrated into the arrangements compared to the previous entry, especially the character themes; I'll expound upon this a bit more later.

There is also some limited reuse of old motifs, occasionally in full rearrangement (such as Unshakeable Resolve), but more often as brief reference to an indirect correlation (as with some of the battle themes). In my opinion, these are done very well, and help to link the productions together.

All this barely scratches the surface of what this soundtrack contains. Needless to say, I am thoroughly pleased, and I look forward to returning to this series in the future.

Been waitin' for this.

To conclude this month's Mega Man feature series, I wanted to briefly touch upon the spin-off series Battle Network, as I'd been given the impression it had a significant musical reputation. The specific entry I settled on was Mega Man Network Transmission, which seemed especially acclaimed. Regardless of how correct or mislead my presumptions were on this matter, I was thoroughly impressed with this soundtrack. It's quite different from the other entries I've heard thus far, doubtless due both to its relatively more recent release and its sub-series differentiation. There's a lot more layers to these compositions, resulting in a fuller sound to compliment the strong melodies. This may or may not be indicative of the franchise's progression toward modernity; if it is, then I look forward to hearing more of what the series has to offer in future.

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I think we can agree that, for all intents and purposes, RT9 has concluded. As such, I feel I am justified in making some post-tournament comments.

Concerning submissions, I considered this tournament to be above average. I believe this is the largest tournament I’ve been a participant in (I may be mistaken, though), and I both appreciated the volume and variety of arrangements presented, and enjoyed the opportunity to offer commentary thereon. There were ambient soundscapes, an oft overlooked subject of music theory. We had quite a few Shinra-Bansho arrangements, and I was surprised to be still so impressed with their originality despite thinking myself familiar with their style. Even pieces I didn’t appreciate as much served to illustrate the variety of musical tastes and their nuances.

All that being said, these are my top three most memorable submissions. (Those keyboard issues I alluded to a while back have escalated to my main device being unusable (hopefully only temporarily), and the spoiler tab function is unavailable on mobile; as such, I am forced to settle for the quote tab function instead. Last time I did this, I was similarly unable to edit in a spoiler tab later, so I must presume this to be permanent; however, my hope is to eventually utilize the power of InvisiText to restore the integrity of the format.) EDIT: The features available in post editing and mobile posting are bafflingly limited; it wasn't always this way, and I'd like to know why so much was restricted.

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1: Shinra-Bansho - Fantasy Poem

I make a point of purchasing the arrangements featured in tournaments when possible; of the few that were available, this is the one I’ve relistened to the most.

2: Virus Key - Dance of the Ice Spirits

I still can’t get over my awe at this piece; I feel this style is relatively rare, and I’m glad to have heard it here.

3: Undead Corporation - Kushinada-Hime OR Iron Attack - Sturm und Drang

The staggered duration of this tournament has made it difficult for me to determine which if these pieces has had more impact on me, so I’m putting them both here.

Traditionally, my own picks follow. I won’t be able to give my standard reviews thereof right now (I’m already fed up with this touchscreen keyboard), but maybe I can add to the post later.

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I’d been saving all of these for some time before this tournament, and I’m glad to have finally got them submitted.

 

O-Life Japan - Dawn Sky of the Myouren Temple

Noah - Capital City of Flowers in the Sky

Diao ye zong - The Second Performance: Curse Deity

I have many thoughts and considerations about the way in which this tournament transpired. Most of them I deem to be unhelpful at this time,  so I won’t bother y’all with them. Suffice to say that the interest and investment of participants was less than that of previous tournaments, and I believe this negativity affected the overall experience. 

If there are to be further tournaments, there must be changes made to the structure and formatting, whether it be stronger standards of commitment or a complete overhaul to adapt. But more importantly, there must be interest in doing so; any changed would be pointless otherwise. As such, I will not be the one to instigate the next tournament if there is one.

Thank you to all who contributed. God bless you all, and good night (or day, as the case may be).

Sensitive Heart - Ghostly Band ~ Phantom Ensemble
Phantom Ensemble is my #1 Touhou piece, and as such I had high expectations for its representation in this post. I was hoping for something that maintained the serene atmosphere of the original with slightly increased activity and a "fun" tone. It didn't take me long to find exactly what I was looking for in this arrangement. However, I should note having discovered several other arrangements of differing styles that also managed to impress me; this pick was not a quick one, and for that I am pleased.

Second Fragment - Phantom Winter
For this piece, I was looking for something low-energy and airy, reminiscent of "ghostly." Instead, I found this mournfully reminiscent arrangement, which still managed to capture the character of the motifs I had hoped to bring out.

Fuyuki Seana - Rydeen/split moon nocturne
One of those situations where I question the intended title due to formatting confusion. In contrast to the previous piece, I wanted Till When in a quick and heavy style, but still have an airy feel in its background. This arrangement fit perfectly, though I worry the upload quality undercuts the piece a bit (I remember having a similar problem with another piece of this artist).

For this feature, I had to do some research into what the more popular Mega Man soundtracks are; my limited knowledge of the series hinders my ability to choose appropriate representative OSTs. Unfortunately, what I found was not as helpful as I had hoped. As I already expected, 2 and X are consistently accepted as among the best VGM of all time, much less the franchise. After that, preferences vary wildly, with few titles consistently favored, and those few referenced with vague partiality.

Among the few titles that did stand out was Mega Man 9, which I gather was a soft reboot of sorts that sought to replicate the style of the earliest titles. I was somewhat against featuring this, for the same reason I resisted featuring Majora's Mask for the LoZ month: being intentionally resemblant of a previous entry, it seemed ill-advised to consider it properly representative of the series's range. However, few other options presented themselves, and so I acquiesced to listen through the soundtrack in question. Having done so, I cannot deny its high quality, and may even argue it revitalized the old style into something sufficiently unique. I'd still have preferred to find something more indicative of the series's progression, but I'm glad to have heard this.

Bonus: I found this remix of We're the Robots that seemed understandably fitting to include.

MANDALLIUM - Mirage
ALL THE GENRES!!! Why this piece, though? Great find regardless, but I do wonder how prevalent this particular sort of hybrid genre is, given I can't recall coming across it before.

Midocake - Doll Judgement ~ The Girl Who Played with People's Shapes
I really appreciate the intricacies of the original track, which ironically makes alterations a bit harder to enjoy; when you're used to listening for small details, the absence of those details becomes distracting. As such, I decided to finally give this artist the spotlight (though I'm worried my translation isn't sufficiently accurate).

Liverne - Capital City of Flowers in the Sky
What a find this was! Given the infamy of the track in question, I had specific expectations for whatever I picked. This take appropriately captured the tone I wanted, and works well as a counterpart to the Bucuresti arrangement.

Cutting it close, it’s unusual circumstances. I may leave a simplified feature without commentary and edit it later (by which I mean that’s exactly what I’m doing). So enjoy these tracks from Mega Man X!

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Later:
I'll need to see about the lack of "spoiler tab" option for editing posts.

As stated previously, I'm not usually appreciative of the SNES soundfont, especially in context of its technical limitations. Despite this being an oft references highlight of the era musically, I still get hung up on the sounds, and come away considering it as unrealized potential. However, I can appreciate many of the motifs presented, and occasionally even enjoy listening to a piece in spite of my reservations. Overall, I'm glad to have finally listened to this iconic soundtrack.

OrangeCoffee - Crystallize Daydream
I love this glitch-lite style, where it doesn't technically go all the way but still has those fun little tricks you'd otherwise get. Because PCB is winter/ghost themed, I tend to assume cold-toned arrangements for its pieces. But sometimes, I think I project the tone onto the piece, rather than it actually being there.

Crest - Shadow and Illusion
I did not expect to pick a piece like this, as I associate it more strongly with folk. But when I came across this one I just couldn't pass it up. How often do we have French vocals here, and with this level of quality?

Ganeme - YVO4
I'm not especially fond of Chen's theme; its motif simply doesn't compare favorably with its album companions. Adapting it to harder genres seems to help.

This will be another series feature month, this time covering titles from the Mega Man franchise. As with the previous feature month, I'm not entirely sure of all the titles I'll be covering; two are obvious, and thereafter I lack the familiarity to confidently choose. Hopefully I won't miss something vital.

While the original trilogy is often cited as the foundation of the series, I found Mega Man II to be especially relevant to its musical development. The first Mega Man's music lacked progression in its motifs, favoring short loops over multi-motif pieces. Not so for the second game; most tracks have unique intros and at least two motif sections with variations. The melodies are notably stronger, and the hardware is fairly utilized for complexity in arrangement. Tracks are still short compared to modern compositions, but their dynamic quality keeps them from becoming repetitive. It's no wonder that some of these pieces have become iconic staples of the industry.

Thread is officially updated; broken links in my own posts have been replaced. I also updated a few features to reflect contributions from deleted features; broken links in still existent posts were not replicated, as they can conceivably still be updated by the original submitters (the record preserves their intentions, and is itself properly contextualized). As a commemorative gesture, here's a little remix feature.

I've some childhood nostalgia for the amusing compositions of Sandra Boynton. While I lack the context to fully appreciate the surprising range of talent featured in her albums, I could tell these songs had much higher quality of performance than they probably deserved. Regardless, they've never really left me, and can't say I mind.

Skima-bit - Awakening
Despite this being a relatively unknown track in the fandom, I happened to encounter it early (as cataloged on the archive channel), and it has been one of those special oddities of the franchise since.

UnPS - Ghostly Dream ~ Snow or Cherry Petal
The serene quality of solo piano seemed especially fitting for the intro to a winter-themed story.

UI-70 - Paradise ~ Deep Mountain
After those two low-energy pieces, we need something that maintains the tone while improving the balance of mood. How about flamenco?

Boundary Observatory - Dusk
"Unsettled" ambience is a fitting identifier, if a tad subjective. Circus Reverie is similar to Merry the Magician in tone, so it makes sense that a few arrangements would favor this lower energy. I personally don't think the motif is that strong, but a remix like this should help make it more memorable.

Prismriver Orchestra - Forest of Magic
This an apparently underrated motif, because I could not find much coverage on it. This arrangement isn't a new discovery, but I got desperate for something to do the piece justice.

Shimanojo's Toy Box - Witch of Love Potion
Hopefully that's a close enough translation.
This is another one of those pieces whose supposed obscurity of origin has lent itself notoriety. It's still not that well known, but it's more familiar to me than some of these other tracks. This is a particularly fun arrangement.

While Skryim remains one of my favorite soundtracks, I'd yet to hear what the previous titles in the Elder Scrolls series had to offer. The third and fourth games both shared the fifth's composer Jeremy Soule, and I'd often wondered whether any tracks from those entries had been carried over without me being aware. So this week, I decided to check out the soundtrack for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

As it turns out, I recognize quite a few of these tracks from their later usage; whether they were carried over directly or adapted to some extent, I'm uncertain. I also suspect some are more specifically from the Dragonborn DLC, making their inclusion more of a reference to this title. Regardless, the style and tone that characterizes Soule's work is fully present; subtle melodies are woven through distant soundscapes in a perfect balance between ambience and personality.

I'm considering skipping next week, partly in preparation for next month, but primarily in the interests of going through the thread and updating links.

On 5/17/2023 at 10:57 AM, buskerdog said:

how are things going with that?

To reuse your own phrasing, time for soundtracks sometimes means less time for games; I still haven't gotten around to it. I also don't tend to use my Switch, so it's not usually in a "ready-to-play" state. I'll be sure to mention my thoughts on the experience when it happens.

As to the soundtrack at hand: Don't get me wrong, the music is still great. I just didn't think it was quite as good as some of the base-game's tracks. In this case, it's ultimately a matter of preference. Also, in a twist of irony, with that post you have completed the re-feature of all the tracks previously shared from the game three years ago.

Thanks again for all the past help in tracking down obscure metadata for this series. As always, I look forward to whatever you decide to present.

For no reason beyond personal enthusiasm, this week's feature is doubled up.

ikurumi - Nihil & Arts Factory Null - Lies
The first of many remixes within Dolls of Pseudo Paradise, and among the tracks being carried over from the Seihou Project. This was Reimu's theme in Seihou 1, but I think most are familiar with it from this re-publish and its later remixes down the series. I'm not particularly fond of it, at least when comparing it to other Reimu themes, but fan arrangements have done a good job at adapting its parts in creative ways. As for these remixes, glitch hop is unique enough on its own, and the vocaloid arrangement is more competent then I'm used to.

Forest306 & Sing, R. Sing! - Cherry-petals, Travel Through Love & Iris Drop - The Rainbow Light That Makes You Bloom
Yuuka's forgotten theme, extremely underrated. I should mention that DiPP is possibly my least favorite music release in the series, entirely because I dislike the production sound; I believe a motif's true strength is independent of its presentation, but its reception will be inevitably impacted. I say this because the original version of this piece in SD-88 is one of my favorite non-Touhou ZUN compositions. I appreciate the justice these remixes do to the piece, especially the folk one.

Toubu Kaitakuchi - Sakura, Sea, and Stupa Sword (Furura Remix) ~ Enigmatic Doll & ZYTOKINE - Enigmatic Dollz
This one was far more difficult to find for than I expected; I thought it has a decent enough degree of popularity to receive thorough coverage, and granted there was coverage, but it took a while to find anything I was happy with. Regardless, find I did; still not sure about the title of the first one, but the info is close enough to track down as needed.

This is something of a followup to last week; as Okami has been an important entry to this thread, there are other soundtracks that have had similar impact. More so than any other, perhaps, is the Monster Hunter series.

Between busker and I, there have been several MH features spanning across the series, with a slightly heavier focus toward the more recent entries. My own contribution was extremely minimal; my initial feature was done without real familiarity, and I basically chose three tracks out of a random selection without any real appreciation for their context. Despite this, the quality of the music was enough to capture my attention; specifically, one of those tracks from the initial feature stuck with me. Subsequent explanations from long-term-fan buskerdog have helped facilitate deeper interest, leading us to today.

For some time, I've wanted to do a proper feature of the title that technically served as my entry point. What has made this difficult (and indeed what made the initial feature attempt difficult) is the confusing localization standards of the series. As previously discussed on this thread, some Monster Hunter games will release with different titles between the two hemispheres; subsequently, expansions to the games (which are common) have also been known to release with different names. Even worse for my purposes, music track titles may also be localized, further frustrating attempts to identify a track's origin. But by far the most difficult aspect of the situation is the titular monsters themselves; not only do they carry their respective music themes with them from game to game, but even their names are occasionally localized, making sourcing their first appearance a sometimes nigh impossible task.

All that being said, the situation is somewhat improved by starting with an official soundtrack release rather than the loose music from the game, thus skipping the hunting process (heh). I thus desired to procure the OST from which my favorite track had originated. This track was The Awe-Inspiring Brave Figure, localized as Draped in Valor, and was the arena theme for Monster Hunter X.

Pronounced "Monster Hunter Cross" (or so I gather), the game was localized as Monster Hunter Generations, with the subsequent expansion renaming the game to Monster Hunter XX ("double-cross?"), or Generations Ultimate. As with other entries, the game featured monster and music from previous releases, while also adding a selection of new monsters. There are also cutscene and idle area themes, some of which are remixed versions of returning tracks. The style of this music is less Oriental than Okami, but still has a distinctly Eastern tone to it that varies in intensity. I'd also say I detect some Irish folk influences, but I'm beginning to suspect confirmation bias with how often that happens (more on that in a future feature, perhaps).

Despite the series' being most well known for its combat tracks (i.e. the monster themes), there's some amazing music in the other parts of the game as well.

That being said, there's a reason for the reputation.

To close off, I wasn't that impressed with the pieces added by the expansion (assuming I've heard them all, since the music release wasn't technically a proper OST), but the one track that stood out was a full cover of the series' main theme. Even that wasn't quite to my expectations (I prefer other versions), but the motif itself is fantastic, and I'd be remiss not to include it.

Kommisar has been uploading a lot of his older works to his channel recently; quite a few gems.

I don't know why this video title is in Japanese. The Third Man is an old suspense film noteworthy for a variety of things, but most relevantly to me they chose the gimmick of using only one piece of music for their soundtrack. Having seen the film, I don't think it worked, but the piece itself is good.

I recently watched The Straight Story for the first time, and it's been awhile since I was as impressed with a film as I am with this one. It has been on my mind, and as such so has its music.

Schwarzwald - Vampire Illusion
Finding this was a pain; I did not expect such trouble for an EoSD piece. While there was no lack of results, at least three-quarters of them were mixed arrangements with both Eternity and Eastern Dream..., which didn't fit my criteria. I didn't even discover this one; I only found it because it was covered by Bit2, and I was immensely grateful for it.

Ping Xing Shi Jie - Crimson Belvedere ~ Eastern Dream...
While I didn't have nearly as much trouble with this one, I was struck with indecisiveness between options favoring intensity and favoring serenity. Obviously I settled on the latter, though it had more to do with the uniqueness of the particular arrangement than my own preference.

k-waves LAB - Legend of Hourai
I'm a bit worried at how close in style this one is to the preceding feature, but it fits too well for me to pass up. Since Dolls in Pseudo Paradise is less familiar to some fans, I may feel inclined to add additional commentary to the tracks featured, especially given the unique origins of some. As for this one, it's an original composition for the album, and as such severely underappreciated.

22: Eternal Melody - SYNCHRONICITY
A paradox.

On initial listening, it seemed to me the piece was clipped at the end; there is no fadeout, neither is the last measure even finished. So I went looking to see if I could find another video, to determine if this was a mistake by the uploader or an issue with the arrangement itself. What I found was this video, which includes the album's preceding track as an intro into the focus piece, but does not do much to fix the ending. As of now, I still do not know if the cutoff is intentional.

The piece itself has a good buildup, even without the extra lead-in, but suffers a little in its climax. It felt a bit longer than it maybe should have been; the progression structure supports it, but I suspect it has too many unnecessary parts in the middle to give its climax the necessary punch. It was also a bit difficult at times keeping track of the source motifs; at times I thought I heard elements of Maiden's Capriccio and Capital City of Flowers, but I believe this was unintentional. Of course, there's nothing wrong with an arrangement creatively straying away from its source material; I just thought I'd mention it.

A solid arrangement, but with a few oddities. 7/10

23: Karasu - Moths to a Flame
Casual intensity.

Glad to see Karasu in a tournament, though I would have preferred a piano arrangement. As expected, this is a more experimental-type remix that doesn't quite fit its associated genre. Despite employing heavier instrumentation, there's a laid-back tone to the piece; it's not building up to anything, and even its climax holds back on anything forceful. While this is intriguing, it also doesn't seem to serve a purpose, and the finer thought process underlying the arrangement eludes my perception.

Creative, but without direction. 6/10

24: ShinRa-Bansho - Traveler of the Aurora
Cheating.

Following up the previous two with this feels imbalanced, but mayhap that's my bias. However that may be, it's hard to sound fairly critical of this piece, since it obviously covers all the important points and also happens to be a favored style. As a high-energy piece, it jumps very quickly into itself, but somehow avoids stagnating. This may have something to do with the length; I initially thought it was too short, but I think this was more the previous entry feeling so long. It's well filled out and progresses quickly, so I'm now inclined to think its length is appropriate. Also impressive is the double lyrics, a method not unheard of but uncommonly employed.

With perhaps biased favor, an invigorating ending. 8/10

Each year, I've listened through and featured an individual disc from the OST for Okami; the soundtrack is extensive enough that it was inconvenient the first year to listen to the whole thing at once, and it made for a consistent plan going forward. While there are five discs in the official release, the fifth is actually a collection of promotional and unused music; the soundtrack itself finishes with the fourth disc. As such, this will finally conclude my four-part feature of Okami.

Of the four parts, this disc is notably shorter, feature only about thirty tracks to the previous three's fifty each. The style is about the same: There are cutscene tracks, area tracks, and combat tracks, each arranged according to their usage. The genre is almost exclusively Oriental folk reinforced with orchestra. Melody is lighter compared to similarly styled collections, but is still present, differentiating the more memorable pieces.

The signature sounds of the Eastern Hemisphere are what defines this soundtrack, and are what captured my interest when it was introduced to me on this thread shortly after I started posting to it. It remains the most unique soundtrack ever shared with me by someone else, and it represents to me the core purpose and potential of this topic.